


comes back to me burning red

by cerie



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:56:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thing he’s learned in the course of falling in love with Helen Magnus is that she’s stubborn to a fault and anything she’s not brilliant at on first go is something she writes off as frivolous and unnecessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	comes back to me burning red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nextgreatadventure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a sailor on your open book (write it down in code)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/202499) by [nextgreatadventure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextgreatadventure/pseuds/nextgreatadventure). 



> This fic is inspired by a gorgeous Helen/Will fic by Kate, where a scene alludes to the fact that John taught Helen how to play piano. I begged and pleaded very nicely and she allowed me to write the backstory Helen/John scene.

“Well, that’s the last of them.”

John barely looks up, concentrating instead on finishing his snifter of brandy while Helen is thus occupied. He’s never really cared for Christmas and it’s not for any lack of cheer - John just prefers the company of a few over many and this party had gotten far out of hand. Helen and Nikola tend to want more people, rather than less, and when James is in a good mood, he’s a hell of a lot more sociable than anyone should be. Even Nigel had come out of the woodwork some.

John had spent most of the evening seated at the piano, an acceptable enough activity when there were people milling around the house in high spirits. He’d gotten requests and filled them amiably enough but now that everyone seemed to be out of Helen’s house, the piece he’s segued into is a good bit more maudlin than the carols he’d played earlier. He plays a complicated arpeggio with his left hand, moody and all minor keys, and starts slightly when he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Far too many people around for your tastes? I suspected as much. Luckily they’re all out, other than the help, and Father’s in India. Luckily he’s taken Mrs. Beckett with him or otherwise she’d be having kittens that you’re still here at this late hour. If only I could assure her that my virtue has been neatly handled and a thing of the past.”

John looks up then, smiles, and takes her hand from his shoulder to brush a kiss against her knuckles. He has a few ideas about Helen’s virtue, the lack thereof, and how to better put it into the past. Helen herself, though, hasn’t seemed terribly keen on revisiting the issue and John hasn’t wanted to push it. It’s not something he has much experience with, courting a lady, and it seems Helen is less interested in the pleasures of his bed now that the great mystery is gone.

“You and I have differing opinions on your virtue and how well it was sullied,” John says dryly, tugging Helen down to sit next to him on the bench. She’s in red tonight, as befits Christmas Eve, and it’s so striking and unlike her that he’s still a little speechless if he looks directly at her. In the interest of not looking like a fool, he focuses on the keys in front of him instead. It’s unnecessary since he can play by touch and has been able to for years but that’s beside the point. Helen doesn’t have to know that.

“I told you, it was fine. I just think I’m evolved past that particular need, is all, and now I know. I would much rather focus on our intellectual pursuits.” Helen presses down on middle C, a loud tone that’s discordant with what he’s been playing, and John tsks lightly beneath his breath. 

“Evolved past the need for pleasure? Evolved past that which has fueled our society since we first came into being? You are evolved indeed, Miss Magnus. You should write your own book. Darwin would be mad with jealousy, if he were still alive.”

Helen snorts delicately and that’s when John knows that he’s won. One thing he’s learned in the course of falling in love with Helen Magnus is that she’s stubborn to a fault and anything she’s not brilliant at on first go is something she writes off as frivolous and unnecessary. Considering he knows of no woman who has truly enjoyed intercourse the first time, Helen’s reaction is not that uncommon. It is, however, a bloody shame and he means to correct it. She presses another key, holding it out long, and since she’s on his right, the note is high and tinny. This piano sorely needs to be tuned. John catches her hand and threads his fingers through hers.

“Do try to actually play something that approaches musical, love? If I wanted to hear notes at random, I’d just drop the cat on the keys and let him have a go. Here, try this,” he says, playing the first half of a simple call and response exercise he learned as a boy. Helen knows how to read music and plays the violin but the piano, it seems, is beyond her comprehension. While she manages to play back what he’s played (an octave up, mind, but the same notes), she strikes the keys far too harshly and the result is music that’s accurate but not very pleasing to the ears.

“Gently, Helen,” John admonishes her, settling his hands on top of hers to guide her through the passages. “You want to treat it like a rare book.” He presses his fingers down along with hers, pausing as she stumbles through the notes that he already knows. He leans in a little and presses a kiss to her jaw before moving his lips up to her ear. “Stroke them the way you’d stroke a beautiful woman. At least, that always seems to work for me. I have faith you will be able to translate that to your own inclinations, yes?”

He feels Helen’s skin warm a bit and she tips her head down, taking away his access to her neck. She’s concentrating intensely enough that she gets a little furrow between her brows and her next few notes are incredibly precise. John doesn’t like it when she’s perfect, though, and he makes it his goal for the next few moments to distract her as much as possible.

He slides his right hand out from under hers and lays it against the bend of her waist, fingers rubbing lightly at the brushed velvet of her gown. When Helen looks at him, he gives her his best innocent smile. “What? I thought you might like the chance to play it on your own to see if you’ve learned it. You won’t learn anything if I’m pressing your fingers down and showing you what to do.” Helen seems dubious but nods her assent anyway, playing the passage again and again with some slight improvement. 

John slides his hand up and cups her breast. It’s less effective than it could be, considering she’s got at least three layers of clothing between his hand and her skin, but it’s not about how good it feels right this moment. It’s about what it means, what it could mean for her later, and he wants her to ache with anticipation more than actually derive any pleasure from this particular part of the act. It’s merely a taste of things to come. Helen presses down hard on B flat and her fingers slide off the keys; John strokes the back of her left hand with his fingers and laughs warmly.

“Better, but I expect more out of you. I know you can rise to the challenge.” John slides his hand from her breast to her back and toys with one of the buttons along the back of her dress. There’s several, so he undoes the top one and brushes two fingers against her skin at the nape of her neck. Helen’s fingers press hard against the keys, the smooth passage disjointed and rough. 

“A good performer knows how to improvise, Helen. Surely this isn’t distracting you that badly?” Helen huffs and goes ramrod straight, head held high and fingers splayed against the keys like a concert pianist. She has good form, even if she’s far too scientific about it, and John thinks there might be hope yet for her if she’ll just loosen up. He undoes a few more buttons and slips his left hand from beneath hers, curving it around her waist as his lips kiss a slow path from her nape to the top of her chemise.

“Bloody hell, John!” Helen curses a little more creatively when he sucks a mark against the soft skin just above her neckline and tucks her chin down so he can’t kiss her any longer. He straightens a little and doesn’t try to kiss her again but he doesn’t move his hand where its settled on her waist. Helen’s fingers against the keys are haphazard and she eventually removes her hands entirely, settling them in her lap.

“Would you prefer I didn’t? I’m merely trying to prove a point, Helen.”

There’s color high on Helen’s cheeks and she breathes out slowly, a visible attempt to calm herself. “You’ve proven your point admirably, John. I told you, I am evolved past this and I am not interested. We’ve made love and if I desire a child someday, I shall ask you to perform the duty once more. I didn’t like it.”

John rubs her back lightly, more soothing than seductive this time. He’s never been very good about talking about things and even worse with Helen, who isn’t open with her feelings the way another woman might be. The idea that he might possibly have hurt her weighs heavily on his mind and he tries to replay the events of a few weeks before. Helen had been coolly polite about the whole thing and when he’d pressed, she’d simply said she wasn’t really that interested in the face of other, more scientific things.

“What didn’t you like about it, then?” Helen glares at him and John holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m curious, Helen, honestly. I’ve been with women before you and yours is a unique position. I want to understand it a little better. That’s all.”

They’re both quiet now and Helen turns to tuck her face in against his shoulder. John rubs her back and murmurs sweet things against her hair, trying to comfort her the best way he knows how. He imagines that James would be better at this and perhaps that’s the crux of the problem - he knows that Helen and James are close friends. If it was James she wanted for this, and not him, she’d have said so, wouldn’t she?

“It’s not really about me, is it? I was there, certainly, but I didn’t feel...anything. There was a bit of pain and then you seemed to find your pleasure easily enough but I didn’t...I simply didn’t. I like it when we kiss much better, I think. That seems to be pleasurable for both of us. I suppose I simply expected something more from the act than actually exists. It’s not your fault, it’s mine, I suppose.”

John feels like an ass. He guesses it’s good that it’s all come out before it went on long enough to drive a wedge between them but he doesn’t like that it’s an issue to begin with. He’s always been blessed with a keen intellect and drive to succeed and he feels it will apply to this as well as any chemistry experiment he’s set his mind to before. “What if I tried again, Helen? You, of course, may tell me no and I will respect it to the letter of the law but I think I wasn’t gentle enough for you.”

Helen shakes her head. “You weren’t unkind, John. You didn’t mistreat me.” John catches her chin in his hand and looks into her eyes. She’s the most beautiful and most brilliant woman he’s ever known and the idea of loving her without ever being with her is more than he can bear. While he’d be happy to spend eternity by her side without so much as a touch between them, he wants to mend this rift. If Helen truly doesn’t like the act, he’ll drop it after this, but he wants the chance to prove himself to her in a way he apparently hadn’t the first time.

“I wouldn’t mistreat you, no, but that’s not what I said. I said I wasn’t gentle enough.” John stands and offers his hand, smiling when Helen slides her smaller one into his. For this, he doesn’t want to be here where they might be caught and while his own lodging is meager fare compared to the Magnus house, it does afford them privacy that her home simply doesn’t. He tugs her into his arms and teleports them, turning up in his house without so much as a hair out of place. Helen grins a little, eyes alight with curiosity.

“You’ve gotten so much better, John. Have you been able to manage long distances? Or places you’ve never been before?” She sounds like she’s going to turn this into an experiment and John presses a finger to her lips to quiet her. There will be an experiment, certainly, but it’s not going to have anything to do with his gifts from the Source blood.

“Let me light a fire for you,” he says instead, kneeling to do that very thing. Once it catches, he glances over his shoulder at her and is struck, yet again, by how beautiful she is. She’s disheveled right now, dress half unbuttoned and hair coming out of her carefully pinned chignon to frame her face in soft curls.

Helen is smiling now, even if it’s small and barely there, and he stands before her and cups her face in his hands. He could, in truth, be happy with just this but he doesn’t want Helen to miss out on anything merely because he rushed through the act with her and didn’t see to her needs as well as his own. He tilts his head and closes the distance between them in a kiss that while gentle, is no less passionate, and is rewarded when her hands slide around his neck and she presses her body close.

It takes everything he has to pull away and the little sound of longing that Helen makes is enough to make him want to kiss her again and again. Still, he has plans, and they involve a more leisurely exploration of her body than they’ve really had a chance to have before now. He turns her around to undo the remaining buttons on her gown and once the heavy velvet is taken care of, it doesn’t take long to undress her the rest of the way. Helen’s skin is smooth and pale, dappled with freckles here and there that look even more inviting in the low light of the fire. He brushes his fingers against them, rewarded when she blushes a little.

Men’s clothing, while not as lovely as women’s by far, has the distinct advantage of being easier to take off than theirs and John is fairly sure that he’s never been this inspired to get undressed before. Helen watches him, eyes alight with interest, and he hopes her keen curiosity will come into play in this arena as it so often does with her scientific pursuits. Once he’s finished, he draws Helen down so that they’re both kneeling before the fire and he works one hand into her hair, loosing the pins, and slides the other down low to the small of her back before kissing her.

Kissing Helen is like no pleasure he’s ever known. Far from a meek, passive creature, Helen Magnus pours every inch of herself into her kiss, tilting her head and granting him access with teeth and tongue and his own mouth. John is normally a little rougher with her, winding his hands in that golden hair and scraping his teeth against her soft mouth but tonight, he means to be gentle. He cups her cheek with one hand and gently deepens the kiss while guiding her down to the rug to cover her with his body. The fire warms his skin and brings a glow to hers that makes him want to push harder and _take_ but he resists. Tonight is about Helen in a way it wasn’t the last time.

He works a leg between hers, a strange flush of pride washing over him when he feels Helen arch against him, slick against his thigh. John breaks the kiss and props on an elbow to look at her for a long moment. Her lashes are tipped with gold, her skin smooth and unblemished except for a scattering of freckles that only add to her charms no matter how much Helen complains about them. Helen frowns a little after a few moments, apparently confused. “John? Did you misread me? I was very interested in continuing.”

He laughs and dips his head to kiss her shoulder, her collarbone, the slope of her breast. He circles his tongue around her nipple and is rewarded when it peaks and Helen gasps. “Sensitive there, are you? I think we’ll have to conduct an experiment.” And experiment he does, both with deft, quick fingers and his mouth and tongue. He sucks lightly against her skin and draws her nipple into his mouth, curling his tongue around it when Helen rewards him with a “John, _please_ ,” and rakes her nails against his shoulder.

His kisses drift lower still, all along her ribcage and down her stomach to just below her navel where there’s a slight swell. Helen likely hates it but he doesn’t, because it makes her soft and, even better, gives him just enough fodder to imagine what she might look like with child. That’s something he wants sooner rather than later and he hopes that once he and Helen marry, she won’t be so reluctant about it. He pillows his head on her hip and draws his fingers up along the inside of her thigh, light and unassuming, and feels Helen draw in a sharp breath.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want, Helen. You have to know that.” John lifts his head and watches the apprehension fade from her eyes and get replaced with something hotter and hungrier. Encouraged, he slides two gentle fingers against her, teasing and exploring instead of plunging in. What he’d forgotten last time that had proven to be very important was that this wasn’t always about the end result. It’s not always about finding a peak and conquering a woman. Sometimes it’s about the journey, about learning how she twists and turns and responds to the simplest of touches and learning how the slightest bit of pressure can mean the difference between pleasure and pain.

Helen is so slick that his fingers glide easily against her and once he’s reasonably sure she’s enjoying herself, he shifts and cups her hips in his hands to drag her toward his mouth. This is something he hasn’t done very often and never to Helen. He’s always worried she’d think it was disgusting or base, in a way, even if John thinks there’s nothing more wonderful than being this close to her and having every sense devoted to bringing Helen pleasure. He slides his tongue against her, pleased when he hears Helen gasp softly and feels her fingers thread into his hair. He presses in a bit with his tongue, tasting and learning her instead of going right to it, and Helen squirms beneath his mouth.

“John,” she whimpers, breathless. “For the love of God, the point’s been driven into the ground. Please?”

He does so love an exasperated Helen and instead of giving her what she wants (or what she thinks she wants, rather, because Helen is inexperienced enough in bed play to have no idea what is and isn’t good), John teases her a little more. He pushes her thighs apart a little wider, exposing her to him fully, and pulls back just enough so he can look at her. Helen’s turned her head to the side, trying to hide from him, and he clears his throat.

“Nothing to be ashamed of, pet. Look at me?” Helen shakes her head, sweat-damp curls sticking to her cheeks and forehead, and John responds by sliding his thumb from her clitoris down her labia minora in a slow, deliberate caress. This is a far more interesting anatomy lesson than he ever took at Oxford and he imagines it might be more enlightening for Helen as well.

“Look at me, Helen,” he murmurs, fingers resting against her thigh. “Ask me where you want to touch?” This, it seems, Helen can do easily enough and she gives him a nervous little smile. “I want you to run your tongue along my...along my labia, yes. That’s a proper enough term.” John is of the opinion that making love should never be _proper_ but this is, of course, about Helen. Always. He shifts and kisses just where she asks for a few moments before pausing and lifting his head once more.

“Would you like me to finish it, Helen? Show you that which you’ve determined you’re evolved beyond and don’t need? You can’t know if you need it if you’ve never had it, correct?” Her mouth twists into a frown, frustrated, but it slides into a low keen of pleasure when John slides two fingers into her and crooks them, brushing against a spot that he’s read theories about but has never actually found before. Helen’s mouth rounds in a little “o” of pleasure and he rewards her with his own again, lips and tongue sucking against her clitoris with single-minded focus and dedication. For her, always, for as long as she’ll have him.

John could swear he tastes it before he feels it but he feels it easily enough, the way she goes slicker against his face and her muscles clamp down around his fingers. He coaxes her through the orgasm, not relenting, and is rewarded yet again when she slides into another that’s less intense but hopefully no less pleasurable. He doesn’t know; he’ll have to ask her when she’s not otherwise disposed.

When he pulls away, he rolls to his back and tugs at her. Helen is quick enough to gather what he’s after and straddles his thighs, slick, warm heat less than half an inch from his cock. He wants to bury himself in her and find his own pleasure but he thinks, with her on top, she’ll be able to control it and take him in a way that she likes rather than simply tolerates for his benefit. John never wants to be tolerated by Helen Magnus. Consumed, worshiped, cherished, loved and needed, certainly, but never tolerated.

His eyes drift shut when he feels her take him in, hot and slick, and once she’s settled so he’s buried to the hilt, he opens his eyes to find her smiling down at him. One of her hands braces against his shoulder and he brings his own up to cup her hips and help even out the rhythm once she starts moving. On every pass, she leans close, and while it’s not close enough to kiss her mouth, it is close enough to kiss and suck at her breasts, bringing high color to her cheeks and an urgency to the way she moves. John’s so lost in _Helen_ that he almost doesn’t catch it when she asks him something, eyes dark with pleasure and voice soft.

“Under you. Please?”

He rolls them and covers her, hips rocking against hers and pressing himself deep before drawing out completely to do it over and over again. The fire crackles and there’s no sound in the room aside from their heavy breathing and the slide of sweat-slicked skin. Her nails find his back at some point, raking down them harsh enough to draw a little blood before she hooks her leg over his hip and presses her foot against the small of her back. It changes the angle so definitively that John is lost, thrusting into her and finishing when he swore he’d pull out. There’s nothing more important to him than taking care of Helen and that includes, as always, ensuring she won’t conceive before they’re married.

His thrusts slow to a stop and he looks at her, memorizing her beautiful face, and swears that there’s no way she’ll ever be without him by her side.


End file.
